Re: could you safely rewrite the DFSG requirement?
On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 01:22:56AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr> writes:
>
> > Maybe, but it is not what is written. Also i guess if you ask all
> > debian developpers about this, not 100% of them will agree with you
> > on what they read there.
>
> What is written is that free distribution of aggregations must be
> permitted. Aggregation with one page, with one tiny little
> insignificant addition *is* aggregation, and *is* what is written.
What is written is that free distribution of aggregation with software musrt
be permitted. And software originally means a significant amount of machine
code which can be executed somewhere.
Even if we go as far as including documentation as software, it still needs to
be a meaningfull thing that you aggregate, and not an empoty content one
liner.
Also, even if you consider documentation as software, there is another obscure
interpretational leap from there to considering printed documentation as
software.
I know many in the free softare community want it to be such, but this is by
no means a granted interpretation.
> That's all I'm saying. I want to be sure that O'Reilly explicitly
> understandings this.
Again, that is what you and other people on debian legal say, but it is by no
means clearly written in the DFSG.
> > Also, i suppose you were already a debian developper when the DFSG was first
> > written, to say that it was interpreted such from day one, if yes, why was it
> > not written clearly ?
>
> I was around and payed close attention to the process, but I was not a
> Debian Developer. Why don't you ask the people who wrote it?
>
> > "altough the DFSG seems to say otherwise, we won't accept this licence,
> > because we don't consider it as free".
>
> The DFSG does not say otherwise. The license (as written) requires
> that aggregations be DFSG free; the DFSG requires that free
> distribution be permitted for all aggregations, including those such
> as (for example) Sun OS.
Well, yes, but the Sun OS is by no means an empty one liner, is it ?
> > This would have been understandable, but this is not what did
> > happen, there were various different reasons for rejection given,
> > and a polemic about what is considered an aggregation, the absurd
> > proposal of aggregating an no content one liner and other such
> > things.
>
> The point is that the DFSG requires that free distribution as part of
> an aggregation be permitted. It does not allow *any* restriction of
> this, and thus, even a "no content one liner" aggregation is an
> aggregation, and free distribution of this must be permitted,
> according to the DFSG.
No, see my reply to this at the beginging of the mail.
This is just your interpretation, not what the DFSG says.
> I don't know whether O'Reilly understands this or not.
>
> > The correct way to solve this is to change the DFSG to say what we
> > want it to say, and not to resort to obscure interpretations to have
> > it mean what we want it to mean.
>
> Unlike you, apparently, I'm quite content with what it does say.
Because you interpret it as what you wish it to say, and since the opinion of
the debian-legal folk is mostly the decisive opinion on this matter, it
doesn't matter much if it really say so, or say otherwise, does it ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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